The problem with the newer

The problem with the newer drivers only manifests itself with the 6-series chipset.  See this long thread on Intel’s forums for the details:

http://communities.intel.com/thread/20439?start=135&tstart=0

(at least Intel has been just now able to reproduce the bug, but who knows how long it will take for a fix to materialize).  Not sure if the problem is specific to 64-bit or also happens on 32-bit, but I guess I’ll find out.

I plan to install 4GB — I just don’t see 64-bit as a big advantage until you have more than 4GB of RAM (64-bit programs are bigger, and use more memory while they run, so it is somewhat of a wash even though some of the memory above 3GB is not usable on 32-bit Win7).  And then there is the pain of dealing with the “Program Files” vs. “Program Files (x86)”, 32-bit vs. 64-bit drivers/media filters/codecs.  A 64-bit Win7 installation also has a much larger footprint than does 32-bit (a concern if you’re stuffing it onto a 60GB SSD).

I’ll probably still attempt to do without a clean install and just see what happens.  I’d like to not be writing all that data (clean install, then updates, etc.) to my SSD as it certainly causes (perhaps unnecessary) wear and tear on the flash modules.  If things seem unstable, then I can always fully inventory my software setup and re-do it (and there is a lot of tweaks just over the past year: channel logos, channel line-up editing, remote re-mapping, registry tweaks for discrete IR on/off, power profile, libraries & paths, SSD tweaking, tweaking to folder structure using junctions to move some system data off the SSD and onto the hard disk, the list goes on…)

I’m not even sure I could remember all the tweaks over the last year… although if I have to re-do it, I will certainly keep a notebook/log.

At any rate, we’ll certainly know more next week…